Slowdown lowdown: In a blog post, Microsoft’s head of Windows says older machines, particularly ones running Windows 7 or 8 on Intel’s Haswell chips, will see performance fall after updates to protect against Spectre. Computers running Windows 10 on the same chips will also see some decrease in performance. Newer chips will be largely unaffected.

More to come: Microsoft’s announcement may force other companies, like Apple and Google, to be more forthcoming about how security updates affect performance of Macs, iPhones, and Android devices.

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Martin GilesI am the San Francisco bureau chief of MIT Technology Review, where I cover the future of computing and the companies in Silicon Valley that are shaping it. Before joining the publication, I led research and publishing at a venture capital firm focused on business technology. Prior to that, I worked for The Economist for many years as a reporter and editor, most recently as the paper’s West Coast-based tech writer.

Martin GilesI am the San Francisco bureau chief of MIT Technology Review, where I cover the future of computing and the companies in Silicon Valley that are shaping it. Before joining the publication, I led research and publishing at a venture capital firm focused on business technology. Prior to that, I worked for The Economist for many years as a reporter and editor, most recently as the paper’s West Coast-based tech writer.